The present invention relates to a variable coding method for realizing chip reuse, and further relates to a communication terminal for realizing chip reuse by using the variable coding method, belonging to the technical field of integrated circuits.
The pursuit of miniaturization, multi-functionality, low cost, and low power consumption for electronic products is endless, which makes process improvement and system integration become the two major trends in the semiconductor industry. At present, the wafer manufacturing industry, which focuses on process improvement, is still developing in accordance with Moore's Law. However, as the process dimension is further reduced, Moore's Law is gradually moving toward the limit.
System integration is an important technological approach for the semiconductor industry to surpass Moore's Law. At present, the system integration has three mainstream technologies: System in Package (SiP for short), System on Chip (SoC for short), and Three Dimension Integration Circuits (3D IC for short). Among them, the SiP technology refers to a plurality of chips with different functions and different processes, and some passive components and antennas integrated in a single package to form a three-dimensional multilayer complicated system with powerful system functions. Compared with the SoC technology and the 3D IC technology, the SiP technology has the advantages of high integration level, favorable process compatibility, low cost, high reliability and the like, and has broad application prospects and huge market demands.
With the increasing demand for miniaturization and diversification of functions of electronic devices, the integration level at the system level is required to be continuously improved. Therefore, the number of chips that need to be integrated to develop an integrated circuit system is also increasing. Since the cost of putting a chip into production is very high (its main cost is the cost of photolithography), this leads to an increase in the development cost of the integrated circuit system. In integrated circuit systems, there are often some similarities functions. If these similar functions can be realized by using a common chip, the number of different chips put into productions can be greatly reduced, thereby solving the problem of high development cost of the integrated circuit system.
In the manufacturing process of a communication terminal, an RF front-end module includes all components between the transceiver output and the antenna, and is an important part of the SiP. A miniaturized RF front-end module can greatly improve the integration level and reliability of the SiP. Therefore, the miniaturization of the RF front-end module has become a research hotspot in recent years. There are two trends in the miniaturization of RF front-end modules, namely a component reusable technology and an active inductance technology. The component reusable technology means that in a multimode/multiband chip, multiple transceivers share the same UWB low-noise amplifier, UWB-tuning-range oscillator or phase-locked loop, or the like. For example, Peregrine Semiconductor of the United States has developed a reconfigurable RF front-end module UltraCMOS Global. It solves the interoperability problem through high isolation between low-loss switching and tuning, and adapts to all modes and frequency bands in a digital control manner. However, the existing component reusable technology still has many defects such as limited application scope, difficulty in solving the anti-interference problem, and the like.